1. MP7 Sub Machine Gun. This gun is an absolute beast and by a long way my favourite. I used the token because it’s a level 74 weapon, and because the way MW3 plays a sub machine un is a good choice for my playstyle. It’s similar to the PP90 you see lots of people running around with but beats it by having a larger clip and (more importantly) a much quicker reload than the PP90. As standard it’s got a generous 40 round clip. My favourite setup for this weapon is a supressor and extended mags (takes you to a 60 round clip – enough to mow down three opponents without reloading easily). It does not appear to have any recoil whatsoever, and it’s not bad at longe range either. Because it’s a sub machine gun you run faster, and it pulls up quicker than an assault rifle.

2. Scavenger. I never liked Scavenger much in BLOPS, but in MW3 it’s fantastic. 2nd only to Sleight of Hand in Tier 1. It’s a level 39 unlock and I just can’t wait that long. Sleight of hand is unlocked right away at level one.

3. Portable Radar. This one unlocks at level 74. I love it because it has two features the BLOPS motion sensor didn’t. Number one, you can throw it (instead of just setting it down on the ground). This means you can toss it high up on obstacles where enemy players can’t reach it. Number two,  it doesn’t only help you – your entire team get’s the benefit of it . I only run the Specialist Strike Package so I’m not calling in any UAVs. The Portable Radar is there as long as I stay alive and running Specialist is all about staying alive. I’m sacrificing my tactical grenades, but since Scavenger doesn’t replenish them I think the trade off is good. If anyone think this means I’m a camper forget it – I’m not.

I have to say this is without doubt the best Call of Duty yet. In particular the Kill Confirmed game mode & Specialist Package really add something to the game – by greatly reducing camping. I’ve seen lots of YouTubers complaining the game is too soft on weaker players. What I take that to mean is they are having difficulty getting games like they did in BLOPS running the 8-9-11 Killstreaks (Blackbird, Chopper Gunner & Dogs) so they could post 75 Kill games. I don’t miss that – most times I saw that in Black Ops it was some 15th Prestiger who’d basically camp their start flag in Domination off the bat to get their Kill Streaks. It just made the game frustrating for me as a below average player. The Specialist Packge is simply awesome. I never liked calling in killstreaks anyway, so now I get to run and gun full time without feeling like I’m playing with a disadvantge. Maybe I’ll call in my MOABs though.

Since most people always like to hear complaints about Call of Duty for some reason, as a footnote here are the aspects of MW3 I don’t like:

Scoreboards: Number of captures not displayed for Domination. This is insance – they should be there as tye are the objective – not kills.

Elite: BLOPS gave us all the stats we could want in game. MW3 seems to think I will pay more money for stats. I won’t.

Spawns: They really are crazy, but for every time an enemy spawns with me in their sight and kills me, I get one back. It doesn’t bother me too much. they’ve said it’ll improve in January.

Lag: I’ve heard people complain, but I used the option to switch off theatre mode and I don’t have any problems. I’ll be brutally frank here – when I read that the lag in Black Ops was attributable to theatre mode, an option for the small percentage of players who are also YouTubers my blood boiled. These people should just put up with running their PVR’s all the time if the alternative is a reduced enjoyment for everyone.

My favoutrite class setup:

• MP7 – dual attachments – supressor & extended mags.
• Skorpions – akimbo (thanks xcal)
• Frag Grenade
• Portable Radar
• Tier 1: Scavenger
• Tier 2: Hardline
• Tier3 : Steady Aim
• Specialist Package: Sleight of Hand, Stalker, Assasin

Note: if there was an option to have no death streak I would take it. I use Juiced as it seems the least lame.

I now have just the one spare Prestige Token – I’ll end up with 10 if I prestige all the way. I’ll spend 5 on extra custom classes, and 5 on double XP (when it’s double XP weekend – apparently that’ll mean quad XP).

Since I can’t bring myself to comment on the (frankly) worthless news articles out there, here’s what I think to some of the common stuff I’m reading

1 “It’s Sony’s fault” or “Sony should’ve known better”

Rubbish really. Sony probably thought to themselves “we’re running a gaming network” and mot a bank. I wouldn’t expect this kind of attack either.

2 “The Playstation Network will/won’t be restored on X date”

I’m getting horribly fed up of all the total speculation on news sites regarding when exactly PSN services will resume. What is clear is no-one know, so news sources posting conjecture as fact is just a waste of everyones time.

3 “[Expletive deleted] you Sony, I’m buying an XBox”

For heavens sake, go ahead. While I’m on this, why on earth do so many sites allow profanity in comments? Or put that another way, why are standards so low on what are meant to be quality sites? And lastly…..

4 “Please login or register to leave a comment”

This is starting to drive me nuts. Take a look at your calendar, it’s 2011. I am NOT going through a big sign up process during which I provide your website with all my personal data. Let me sign in with Twitter, FaceBook or OpenID. I want to leave a comment, not begin some lifelong relationship with your website. So does everyone else.

I really would love to know when services wil be resumed as I’m itching to play, but I can wait. Presumably the problem is they have to marry all the old data (trophys, statistics, purchases etc etc) into the new one. Having said that, it can’t be THAT hard surely?

Turns out the PS3 (the old fat one, not the new slim) had a “Millenium Bug” style fault. It thought/thinks that 2010 is a leap year, so the consoles date & time for 1st March 2010 actually set to 29th Febuary 2010. So far so boring, but that caused a major problem. Once the PS3 was switched on and went online it did what it apparently always does and checkes it’s own clock against the clock on the PlayStation Network. Now since 29th Febuary 2010 doesn’t actually exist, the PS3 throws a panic and sets it’s date back a few years. The result of that…the connection to the Playstation Network fails. And some games will not operate as the DRM checks go potty when they realise you’re trying to play a game that hasn’t even been written yet. Presumably Sony don’t want you playing games from the future eh?

The official Sony blog were awash wish outraged gamers who couldn’t use their PS3′s, but Sony did say the problem “should” correct itself once the PS3′s internal clock had rolled over to 1st March 2010 (ie a date that exists). It did for me – just past midnight the PS3 started up perfectly and connected to the PSN, and there didn’t appear to be any damage (like lost game saves).

I couldn’t believe how angry some people were about this. Sure. it’s not exactly something you would expect, but sometimes these kinds of things do happen. I’m certainly not angry about it – the PS3 is such an awesome piece of hardware. If you think the grass is greener on the other side, just see how many results you get for “Broken XBox” on a Google search – their hardware is nowhere near as robust.

The other thing I thought was great was how Google responded to this. Just by Googling “Playstation Network” the top result was a news entry letting me know what had happened. I was watching TV and neither SKY nor the BBC seemed to be reporting it, but were doing the usual reporting about the same news items they’d been talking about all day long.